The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [117]
One was a wise and elderly priest, renowned for his spiritual-direction skills. The other was my friend Kevin, who was at the time a novice. The two met at a Jesuit gathering. The priest said, “So, Kevin, where are you from?” Kevin said, “Boston.”
Then Kevin decided to ask this revered spiritual director an important question. “Father,” he said, “what would you say is the most important part of spiritual direction?” The priest answered, “That’s easy, Kevin. It’s listening. You have to be a good listener. Listening is the key to being a good spiritual director.” Kevin said, “Thanks, Father. That’s really helpful.”
And the priest said, “So, Kevin, where are you from?”
After a few weeks, I became not only amazed at how God was at work in their lives, but also more tolerant of their foibles. When one novice was short-tempered, I remembered that he had been dealing with a difficult situation in his family. When another was sullen, I remembered that he was dealing with an intractable problem in his ministry. The way they related to the world was colored by their own experience. It helped me to remember the Presupposition, and give them the benefit of the doubt.
My friend Chris is a Jesuit brother who worked for several years in the vocation office, helping to recruit and screen candidates to the Society of Jesus. Chris has a wide circle of friends—both Jesuit and otherwise. In our discussion on friendship and love he pointed out the value of listening, and he adverted to faith sharing.
“For a long time,” said Chris, “I’ve known that faith sharing is critical.” He offered an example why: “Early on, I lived with a Jesuit community member whom I found, well, difficult. Knowing his struggles from faith sharing was helpful because it is harder to dismiss or judge another person when you know he’s struggling.”
Listening attentively and compassionately to my fellow novices also helped me feel less crazy. Until then, I assumed that everyone led healthy and integrated lives. Except me—or so I thought. Faith sharing was the first time I grasped that everyone’s life is a full measure of joy and suffering. And that all of us are more complex than our surface appearance indicates.
We should be slow to speak and patient in listening to all. . . . Our ears should be wide open to our neighbor until he seems to have said all that is in his mind.
—St. Ignatius Loyola
Listening also made me better able to celebrate with my friends. When a novice who was having personal problems experienced some healing, I was more able to rejoice with him, since I knew what he had been through.
Most of us don’t have the time to do faith sharing, or any kind of sharing, with our friends for an hour every week.
But the concept may provide important lessons for developing loving relationships within families and maintaining good friendships. First, before you start to console or advise or sympathize, really listen. Second, try to listen without judging. Third, the more you know about your friend, the easier it will be to understand, sympathize, console, and even forgive your friend. Fourth, the more you can share honestly, the greater will be your ability to say challenging things. Fifth, the more you listen and understand his or her life, the more you will be able to celebrate with your friend over joys.
In these simple ways you will deepen your relationships, your conversations, and your compassion for your friends, and you’ll begin to develop real intimacy, where, as St. Francis de Sales says, “Heart speaks to heart.”
HUMILITY AND FRIENDSHIP
James Keenan, S.J., a professor of moral theology, once wrote that compassion is the willingness to enter into the “chaos” of another person’s life. But even the best of friends sometimes avoid getting involved in the chaos of another life. You might feel overwhelmed by a friend’s problems or frustrated that you can’t fix or solve things for him or her. You might find yourself unconsciously pulling away from